


In Transit

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Reality, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-10
Updated: 2009-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a layover at Schiphol Airport Mohinder gets a surprise visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Transit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greyelveneyes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=greyelveneyes).



Mohinder takes a small sip of freshly brewed coffee but it does little to fight off the sleep that is trying to claim him. He yawns and puts the drink down. Lightly tracing his finger around the lip of the mug he is partially hypnotized by the hazy yellow light from the tiny table lamp to his right.

He shakes his mind awake and gazes up at the other travelers stuck on a layover just like him, trying to pass the odd early morning hours (or is it still a decent hour where he is—the time difference between New York and Amsterdam is playing mind games with his internal clock) at the one open overnight restaurant in Schiphol Airport.

A collection of matching table lamps dimly lights a scattered pattern across the otherwise darkened restaurant. Muted conversations drift across the quiet, pages being turned in a book offer their own low audio; a man snoring from a table in the far corner draws some glances and a laugh from a couple two tables away.

Mohinder angles his left arm on the table and rests his cheek against his opened hand. With his right hand he shifts his mug back and forth across the same few inches of table. Peter needed him on the radar traveling to Munich, but a life of being on the run (even when it is purposely in the open) is nowhere near as exciting as the movies make it seem. Besides boring downtime, the flight itself is an exercise in fragmented sleep and fake food. Maybe if he could just get some shut-eye it would all be—

Mohinder startles awake. He has no chance to ascertain how much time has gone by (though the restaurant is still dark), as the man who is now sitting across from him immediately captures his attention. He is a strange sight, regarding Mohinder with a blank expression. His tan trench coat lies open, revealing a wrinkled button down shirt, a loosely knotted and low hung tie, and the peek of a black suit jacket at the edges. The impression he makes is that of a tax accountant who has had a very long night.

His blue eyes follow Mohinder’s as he looks around for some answer as to who his companion is before settling on staring back at him. Mohinder notes his face looks weathered but soft, not exactly inviting but still welcoming. He sits with his hands off the table, presumably in his lap, not at all threatening, yet his suddenly being there has an antagonistic edge that puts Mohinder on high alert.

“Hello,” Mohinder says cautiously in an instinctive bid for politeness.

_Who the hell are you? _

“Hello Mohinder.” The man’s voice is low and gentle but the fact that he knows Mohinder’s name sparks surprise and worry through his body.

Mohinder frowns. “I…do I know you?”

“That depends,” the man says slowly. “I’m in the book.”

Confused, Mohinder has no clue if the man is trying to be funny or serious, neither of which is of any help to him, and if it is the latter, to which book could he possibly be referring? Mohinder opens his mouth to respond then thinks better of it when only incoherently phrased words trip over each other in his head. He looks down at his coffee mug and raises it a few inches off the table, thinking about taking a sip to buy time. He glances up to find the man staring at him and puts the mug down.

“I’m sorry but I seem to have forgotten your name.” Mohinder returns the focused gaze. He sits up straight, lining himself against the back of the chair and waits for a response.

“Castiel,” the man finally says.

“Castiel…” Mohinder drags the name out and tilts his head to the side indicating that a last name would be appreciated.

“Just Castiel.”

_What kind of name is that and why would I know it? _

No, what Mohinder knows is that he has never set eyes on this gentleman before yet Castiel is looking at him as if he is an old acquaintance. Mohinder has been the target of thoughtful manipulations before and does not plan on being taken in so easily again. Kind to be cruel eyes have watched his moves before, making him believe one thing (or trying to) while stabbing him in the back with the other.

“Have you been following me?” Mohinder decides that a point blank approach is more than appropriate.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Castiel admits though his tone remains relatively flat and ultimately unrevealing, not at all unsettled by the question. His speech is slow and deliberate, stilted as if speaking this way does not come naturally to him and he wants what he says to be heard clearly.

“Why?” Mohinder leans forward and juts his right index finger against the table.

This time Castiel silently waits for him to continue. Mohinder could drag out the cryptic search for information but he has his educated suspicions. Besides, realizing he has been followed halfway around the world has stoked embers of annoyance usually well contained. He would rather get to the point.

“The serum is destroyed and I haven’t been in a lab for months.” Mohinder’s tone is strong and unwavering. “There is no information I could possibly offer you.”

Castiel regards him a moment. “It is not so much what you have done as it is what you _will_ do.”

_What does that mean? _

“And what exactly is that?” Mohinder searches Castiel’s eyes for any signs of explanatory motive for the strange dance of words they are engaging in.

Castiel looks away with a serious expression on his face then stares sternly at Mohinder who suddenly feels as if he is being sized up, maybe even reconsidered for whatever it is that Castiel has in mind. “There is a battle brewing that threatens the very existence of humanity and life as any of us knows it.”

“A battle—,”

“It began in Heaven before time was a construct you could hang your faith on and has since spilled over into this wondrous playground.”

Mohinder furrows his brow in bewilderment at what it sounds like Castiel is implying and the slight inflection of condescension with which he says it.

_Heavenly battle. Humans. Earth. _

Although Mohinder’s knowledge of theology is limited, the familiarity of this tale rings a bell from his university days—a fact that does nothing to alleviate his concerns and misgivings. He certainly knows his Milton.

“Are you talking about…the Fall?” Mohinder hardly believes what he is saying.

“That was then, this is now,” Castiel says.

Mohinder lowers his voice and quickly shifts his eyes to the other people in the restaurant to ensure no one is listening in on the increasingly strange conversation. “Either way you’re talking about angels—,”

Mohinder pulls back and eyes Castiel as if seeing him for the first time. “Who are you?”

Castiel leans forward and places his hands on the table, clasping them together. “Only one person can stop this and he needs your help.”

“My help?” Mohinder is incredulous.

“Yes,” Castiel says definitively. “He—,”

“Who?”

“…Dean. He is strong but uncertain. He has lost sight of the path, is overwhelmed by what he has seen and what lies ahead.”

“And I’m supposed to do what for him?” Mohinder tilts his head to the side questioningly.

“You have found a way to give humans unimaginable power. To make them almost as strong as my brothers and sisters who have valiantly fought to their deaths. You must help Dean harness that, give him the strength to go as far as needed.” Castiel sits back and his unblinking eyes and the calm urgency with which he details the reasons for being there unnerve Mohinder.

Mohinder holds up his left hand in lazy stop motion then rubs his forehead. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Looking back at Castiel he says, “You’re asking me to recreate the serum that I still don’t know how to control so that I can inject a man I have never met before who is meant to save the world from the Apocalypse?”

“Yes.”

Mohinder scoffs in disbelief, sitting back in his chair then leaning forward again. “And you’re an _angel_?” He says the word with a hint of mockery but not out of ridicule. He is truly at a loss to grasp what is being laid at his feet with such reverence.

Castiel does not seem bothered by Mohinder’s behaviour, remaining reserved (and thereby frustrating) instead.

“I don’t even know if I believe in god!” Mohinder snaps as much out of genuine questioning as he wants to get any sort of emotional response out of Castiel.

The comment does not have the desired outcome. “Your belief or not is of no concern to me.”

“Isn’t it?” Mohinder interrupts. “Do you not demand faith? Cast stony eyes on the non-believers—,”

Mohinder catches himself and chuckles. He looks to the ceiling and speaks out loud to himself in disappointment, “And here I am speaking to you as if I already believe you to be an angel?”

“Whether you believe in Him or not, you know what I am to be true.” Castiel is unwavering in his command, his narrowed eyes detailing the first hint of irritation.

“Do I?” Mohinder is sarcastic and truly unsure.

Castiel takes a deep breath. “You have seen a man fly, another travel through space and time. You have seen someone who can move things with his mind and another who can invade the thoughts of others. There are those with muscle mimicry, super strength, molecule manipulation and self-healing. You have seen evolution, the hand of God, as it makes sense to you. I am as real as any of them. My proof is in the word.”

“Be that as it may—,”

“We don’t have time to discuss the finer details of belief without proof, which, by the way, _is_ faith. You have followed that path before and it served you well. I am asking for the same courtesy.”

Unexpectedly Mohinder finds himself retreating from engaging in a counter-intuitive confrontation. Although he has put little stock in unproven belief he knows full well Castiel’s pointed truth that he believed in the existence of Special people long before he saw it with his own eyes. The need for tangible, scientific evidence may come from his father but the undeterred hope in something greater just beyond his grasp is his mother through and through. To argue the point now is useless and little more than knee-jerk stubbornness.

Considering what he has seen and the possibility of what still lies out there, Mohinder has to concede that what Castiel is telling him is as true as anything.

Mohinder breaks away from Castiel’s penetrating gaze. He busies himself with his mug before pushing it away and looking back at Castiel who is still peering at him closely. He feels like a specimen under scrutinizing eyes. “I don’t know that I can help…Dean, is it?”

He raises his hands, twisting them in a physical rendering of his intellectual need to understand the unknowable. Eventually he sets them flat on the table and sighs.

“You can and you will,” Castiel says.

“Or else the world will actually end?” Mohinder half jokes.

Castiel stares at him, lines of intense contemplation wrinkled across his forehead and the crinkle of skin at the corners of his inquisitive gaze.

“That tall an order?” Mohinder says disbelievingly, more worriedly.

“Will you help?” Castiel asks, less of a question in his tone than there should be if he wants to give the illusion of free will.

“I don’t see how I have much choice in the matter,” Mohinder replies with an air of flippancy before rectifying his inflection to acknowledge the urgency of the situation. “What exactly are you asking of me?”

Castiel purses his lips and lifts his chin, once again eyeing Mohinder sternly, now with consideration in his unspoken countenance. “In time, Mohinder. This is the preamble, the prologue to a complicated prophecy.”

“Our _introduction_.”

Mohinder thinks he sees the twitch of a smile briefly play out on Castiel’s lips at his comment but then his grave expression is back in place and any other reading falls away.

“Am I right to think you will find me when the time is right?” Mohinder states. Resigned acceptance of this newest revelation obvious in his voice. The surprise of how fast his personal enlightenment of hope and proof, belief and science has enabled him to accept this latest turn in his life does not last long. He is already thinking ahead to what has been asked—_demanded_—of him and what he is prepared to do. What come next has taken root deep inside his brain.

He knows nothing of the man, the _angel_, sitting across from him except what he can piece together from their brief conversation—which is to say, not much. Castiel is quiet but assured, not at all passive, yet not rigid either. There is confidence behind the words he speaks that is unlike anything Mohinder may draw an apt comparison to. He is striking yet understated and Mohinder is as drawn to him in curiosity as he is wary of him in suspicion.

Although his body is human by way of a conduit to, one would guess, make contact with humans, Mohinder discerns a sharpness of mind that operates on a level far above his own. For a moment he is embarrassed and amused to think Castiel is dumbing down his approach just to make sense.

Castiel tilts his head to the side in wonder and confusion at Mohinder’s quite scoff of laughter. “You are amused?”

Caught off guard by the question, Mohinder’s eyes go wide and he is slack jawed and speechless at first. “Not quite. More like I am not as surprised with what is happening as I should be.”

Castiel’s eyes soften and though Mohinder cannot say if his own reaction to the gesture is how human it seems or that his sentiment has hit a nerve, but he feels a weight lift from his shoulders and offers Castiel a half smile.

Castiel holds his gaze for a few seconds and says, “I will return for you.”

Mohinder’s blood rushes at the promise, his heart pounds in his chest. He utters a small sigh coupled with a barely perceivable nod and looks down at his coffee. “I suppose—,”

There is no one there when he looks up. He flits his eyes around the restaurant but besides the remaining traveling stragglers, Castiel is gone. Mohinder catches the waiter’s eye but holds up his right hand in sign of stop when he begins to approach. Mohinder rests his right elbow on the table and touches his fingers thoughtfully to his forehead, again he stares at the coffee mug.

Everything is quiet, too still.

_The calm before the storm. _

Mohinder pushes his chair back and takes in the sight of the half empty restaurant. Uncertainty of what lies ahead for him—for all of them—turns his stomach while racing his pulse in anticipation. Purpose comes in all manners of form, least of all expected ones. Where he once thought a true calling would flow acceptance over him, he has come to learn that it is just as frightening to stand on the brink of tomorrow.

Everything that has happened has brought him here. Whoever Dean is, their paths are now crossing and Mohinder wants to be focused and ready for whatever gets thrown his way. In the meanwhile he needs to touch base with Peter. The pressure of two worlds colliding is overwhelming and exhilarating.

Reaching into his jacket pocket he pulls out his wallet and fishes out a few euros to toss on the table. Putting the wallet away he reaches down for the strap of his shoulder bag sitting to the right of his feet and stands up, slipping it across his shoulders. Feeling wide awake now he makes his way out of the restaurant and towards his boarding gate.

Tomorrow is an anxious breath away.   
 


End file.
